End of week 6

More time on the treadmill today - my problem is that when I'm training my mind just races on, and usually works against me as I think of how hard I am finding it. Today my mind moved on to the fact that I couldn't remember any famous current marathon runners except Paula Radcliffe - if I want inspiration from people I need to remember who they are.

I couldn't think of the famous male runners, being such a Westerner my brain hasn't held on to the African names. I thought of Haile Gebriesalassie, and I think one current runner is Martin Lel (perhaps the easiest to remember), and a South African called Henrik whose surname escaped me. I know now it was Henrik Ramala. Strangely I can remember two western runners through the ages - Rob Di Castella and Stefano Baldini, both cropping up in my head being pronounced in Brendan Foster's geordie tones. No matter, I started to remember others - even the very first London marathon which I'm sure was won by an American called Dick and a Norwegian bloke crossing hand in hand. I remembered the best British male runner in the 80s was called Hugh Jones who was a redhead who won a couple of times, and that a bloke with a beard called Mike Gratton won in the 80s (who I'm going to meet and run with as part of the Save the Rhino team, but I didn't allow that scary thought to put me off) before Charlie Spedding became the UK lead male runner and then I struggled after that. I think the best runner at the moment might be a chap called Dave ... but I remembered famous women runners like Liz McColgan, Greta Waitz, Ingrid Christiansen, and the point is before I knew it I'd run over two minutes on the treadmill without hurting, straining or wanting to stop.

Not quite sure how many mental challenges I can set myself in a 26 mile run in April but I then decided to remember all the Summer Olympic venues since 1896, which took me comfortably to the end of my 18 minutes. Not a spectacular time but for the first time since I started, I have done the comfortable majority running rather than walking.

Now I feel like I made a breakthrough today, that I can run significantly more than I can walk without killing myself, at least over the small distances I'm training. One thing that doesn't please me though, even though it helped today, is that for the life of me despite nailing all the others I can't remember who hosted the 1932 Olympics. Wikipedia awaits ...